Marge Simpson will be Playboy's November Cover Girl, thus becoming the first fictional character to grace— or disgrace— Hugh Hefner's magazine. Ms. Simpson, of yellow skin and blue beehive hairdo, is the pie-mouthed mom in the animated family known as the Simpsons, who have been popular since they first appeared as a snippet cartoon on The Tracy Ullman Show. Their eponymous TV show is running strong after twenty years. Does it really need this kind of publicity? Does Playboy? Maybe the impoverished men's magazine does— it's been losing its pants.

Simpson fans will delight in seeing Marge in a cheesecake pose while Simpson detractors will find it cheesy or perhaps horrifying. Who really wants to look at a naked woman with jaundiced skin the color of cheese puffs, a body almost as deflated as Popeye's Olive Oyl, and blue curly hair that could house a nest of snakes? But that's the beauty of our diverse society. There's something for everyone. Even the Hollywood Walk of Fame awards stars to fictional characters. Disney's Tinkerbell herself received her Fame star in 2009. Say, there's an idea. Playboy should put Tink on the cover— or better yet, make her the November centerfold. Now she's a hottie.